EEMI Trento Bauhaus Week

Alven Lam is Managing Director of International Markets at Ginnie Mae, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Washington D.C. He is responsible for developing and implementing global strategic partnerships with financial and investment industry involving in Ginnie Mae’s stakeholders with direct and indirect decision-making authorities to the over US$2.2 trillion Ginnie Mae securities. Mr. actively engage in institutional investors including central banks, sovereign wealth funds, pensions, insurance firms and investment banks and asset managers in Asia and the Middle East.

Mr. Lam is specialized in global capital market, housing finance, and sustainable urban development.  Prior to joining Ginnie Mae, Mr. Lam served as Director of International Research at HUD from 2002 to 2013. In 2001, he managed the U.S.-China Housing Initiative, a Presidential bilateral collaboration between HUD and the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development with the focuses on finance and building technology.

He developed international collaboration projects with United Nations Habitat Program, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Governments and institutions in Spain, Mexico, Canada, Uganda, Ghana, El Salvador, Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

He has served in the U.S. delegations to the UN-Habitat Governing Council, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, UN Commission for Population, and the World Urban Forum in Spain, Canada, and Brazil.  In 2010, Mr. Lam was actively participated in the Energy Work Group within the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and had served on the U.S. Delegation to Tianjin, China, San Francisco, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei on low-carbon city projects. 

Prior to joining HUD, Mr. Lam was a research fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

Mr. Lam received a Master’s degree from Ohio State University, and a doctoral degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Andy has two decades of experience in macroeconomics, risk management and financial policy and is Head of Macroeconomic and Capital Markets Research at Allianz SE in Munich (since 2021), where he is responsible for short-term surveillance and macroeconomic forecast as well as the analysis of long-term trends and developments.

Prior to his current appointment, he was a mid-career economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC (since 2005), where his last posting was in the Advanced Economies Unit of the European Department. As IMF secondee, he was Adviser to the Managing Director and CFO of World Bank Group (2016-19), where managed the CFO’s office and his representation at the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the G20 Sherpa Track, the Small States Forum (SSF) and the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). He was also Chief Economist and Deputy Director at the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) (2011-14), where he established the financial stability framework, advised the Ministry of Finance on economic forecasting and debt management. Prior to his work at the IMF, Andy worked at the FDIC, the Deutsche Bundesbank, the ECB, Bank of England, and Deutsche Bank between 2002 and 2005.

He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and was also educated at Oxford, Cambridge and Leicester.

The NIB is an international financial institution of the Nordic and Baltic countries. André has an overall responsibility for NIB’s operations and balance sheet of €38 billion.

Before joining the NIB in April 2021, André had a 25-year career at the EBRD, serving in EBRD management committees for Strategy & Policy, and Asset & Liability management in 2012-2020. In 2020-2021, André was the Managing Director for Central Asia, leading a team across 6 countries and 16 offices. His earlier jobs with the EBRD included leading the bank-wide strategic theme for local currency and capital markets development; being a country head in Ukraine, and in Kazakhstan; and leading teams investing in financial sector.

André started his banking career as one of the first bankers in Estonia, heading the international departments of Tartu Commercial Bank and Bank of Tallinn in 1992-1994. He then moved to Germany, working for SMH Bank and Dresdner Bank until 1996.
André has served on the boards of over 30 banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, equity funds, airlines and railroads. André is currently the Chairman of the Board of Rail Baltic Estonia.
An Estonian national, André is a graduate of Tallinn University of Technology, Estonian Business School, and Stockholm School of Economics.

Danae Kyriakopoulou is Senior Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics where she leads the policy work on the intersections of climate change, international finance and economic development. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Chief Economist and Director of Research of the Official Monetary and Financial Institution Forum (OMFIF). As part of this, she set up the Sustainable Policy Institute and served as its Managing Director and Chair of its Advisory Council, of which she is now a member. She was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2022 and has held roles in various sustainability industry initiatives. Previously, she was Managing Economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research. She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and an MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford.

Ellie is Managing Director of the Economic and Monetary Policy Institute at OMFIF. She is responsible for researching trends, developing relationships, and hosting meetings with finance ministries, central banks and public pension funds on monetary policy, economic and fiscal developments, and regulatory standards across the globe.

An architect by education, Eugenio Morello is an Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Design at Polimi and coordinator and research scientist at the ‘Laboratorio di Simulazione Urbana Fausto Curti’, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (Dastu).  For the department, he is the principal investigator of several European projects. In the period 2017 – 2022, he was the Rector’s Delegate for environmental sustainability and responsible for institutional projects toward a sustainable campus. 

His research interest is situated in the interplay between urban design and environmental quality, climate design, resilience, and adaptation to climate change. He investigates the integration of environmental aspects and energy transition solutions for the design of sustainable communities and cities toward the closing of energy and environmental cycles. In particular, he focuses on the assessment of renewable energy sources (mainly solar and biomass) generation and its spatial implications at the local and regional scale. He is also working on strategic planning for sustainability and localizing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in master-planning design schemes and Higher Education Institutions. More recently, his research work has opened new insights on the topic of collaborative consumption and sharing society and how these new paradigms can inform urban planning, urban design, and co-design approaches. 

Ezio Micelli is a full professor at the Università Iuav di Venezia, where he teaches project-related economic topics. He has worked for years on economic management tools for plans and projects, working in particular on market-based tools (in particular: transfer of development rights and public-private partnership) functional to plan management. In recent years, in the face of a market strongly modified in its structural aspects, research has moved on to the role of real-estate assets as a resource for the creation of social value, with specific reference to the goals of sustainability and the circular use of resources.

He has been director of international and domestic researches (among others: European Urban REgenerators Knowledge Alliance-EUREKA, an Erasmus+ funded program). He is the scientific director of the U-Rise Master’s program at the Università Iuav di Venezia in urban regeneration and social innovation. He collaborates with institutions, and private and public entities for knowledge transfer: he has directed research and consulting programs for, among others, the Ministry of Culture, Assolombarda, National Council of Landscape Architects Planners and Conservators, Confindustria Vicenza, City of Bergamo.

EDITORIAL BOARD 

After almost 10 years of consulting in Bain & Co, he worked in Sky Italia as Marketing Director until 2017 when he took on the same position in Agos.

Gyula Nagy is member of the Board and CEO of  Takarék Mortgage Bank since 2017. He started his banking career as a corporate banker in 1987 and worked in various positions and different banks  in the corporate banking sector. He finished his corporate banking career at HypoVereinsbank Hungary as Head of Corporate Banking before joining the  group’s mortgage bank.  He was  CEO of Hypovereins Mortgage Bank (later Unicredit Mortgage Bank )  from 2001 to 2007.

He is President from the Data and Research Committee in the European Mortgage Federation since 2022. 

He graduated in economics at the Budapest University of Economics in 1978 and got a doctorate degree in Economics in 1986. He also has an MSC  Degree in Real Estate from Budapest University of Technology and  Nottingham Trent University.

Takarék Mortgage Bank participates in the Energy Efficient Mortgage Initiative of the EMF an also has the Energy Efficient Mortgage Label of the ECBC.

Journalist 

Correspondent journalist from Frankfurt Il Sole 24 Ore

Isabella Bufacchi (60) is Germany correspondent for IlSole24Ore and ECB Watcher. She started her career in London. She won the Q8 Prize and Premio Ischia for Economic Journalism. She holds a B.A. Degree from L.S.E.

Senior news editor at IlSole24Ore, Italy’s leading daily newspaper (about 350.000 copies sold daily). 

Ivan Faiella is an energy and environmental economist drawing from the fields of applied microeconomics, statistics and energy modeling. His research covers sample survey methodology, income and wealth distribution, energy prices, carbon taxation, energy poverty and the assessment of climate and environmental risks for credit and investment.

In 2021, Ivan has led the Banca d’Italia Task Force for Sustainable Finance under the G20 Italian Presidency contributing to the activities of the Sustainable Finance Working Group. From 2022, Ivan is the coordinator of Banca d’Italia Climate change and Sustainability Hub.

He is also: member of the Steering Committee of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS); member of the Italian Natural Capital Committee; member and co-founder of the Italian Observatory on Energy Poverty.

Jacobo is a Senior official for the Spanish Government Administration. He has a Master in Energy Law as well as a Master’s degree in Law. He is currently the Deputy Director General for Energy Efficiency (Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Spain) and member of the Directive Board of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE). Previously he had developed other responsibilities related to the energy sector, among others, Senior Advisor at the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Energy (in charge of energy regulation, legal advice, public aid programs coordination and budget management), as well as member of the Directive Board of the Spanish Corporation for Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products (CORES). His professional experience includes both the public and private sector.

Luca Bertalot is Secretary General of the European Mortgage Federation – European Covered Bond Council (EMF-ECBC), representing the interests of EU mortgage lenders and the covered bond community in discussions with the European Institutions and stakeholders in general on all issues relating to the retail and funding sides of the mortgage business. Established in 1967, the EMF is the voice of the European mortgage industry, providing data and information on European mortgage markets, which were worth c. €8.3 trillion at the end of 2021. The EMF has 14 members across 12 EU Member States as well as a number of observer members.

In 2004 the EMF founded the ECBC, a platform that brings together covered bond market participants including issuers, analysts, investment bankers, rating agencies and a wide range of interested stakeholders. ECBC members represent over 95% of covered bonds outstanding, which were worth over €2.9 trillion at the end of 2021. The ECBC has 120 members from across the more than 30 active covered bond jurisdictions and many different market segments.

In his capacity as EMF-ECBC Secretary General, Luca is also Consortium Coordinator for the Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEM) Initiative. In addition, Luca is a member of the European Commission’s Sustainable Energy Investment (SEI) Forum’s Advisory Group and the Advisory Board of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice’s Economics Department.

Luca joined the EMF-ECBC in 2006, becoming Head of the ECBC in 2007 and was appointed Secretary General in 2014. Prior to this, he worked as a financial analyst in Italy and Australia. Luca holds a degree in Economics and Financial Markets from the University of Rome, Tor Vergata. He also studied at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and at the Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania, in the United States.

Luiz de Mello is Director of the Policy Studies Branch in the Economics Department of the OECD.
Together with the policy studies teams, Mr. de Mello provides leadership and strategic direction within the
economics department, ensuring the design and implementation of analysis and policies which promote
stronger, cleaner, fairer and more inclusive economic growth for member and partner countries. Structural
policy surveillance, short and long term economic outlooks, public finance and macroeconomic policy
analysis are among the key workstreams for policy studies.
Earlier in his career, Mr. de Mello held senior positions at the OECD, including Deputy-Director of the
Public Governance Directorate and Chief of Staff and Counsellor to the Chief Economist. Prior to joining
the OECD, he worked as a Senior Economist at the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International
Monetary Fund, and as a Lecturer at the Economics Department of the University of Kent, United
Kingdom. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Kent, United Kingdom.

Marco Preti has been the CEO of CRIBIS, a CRIF Group company, for more than 10 years. CRIBIS is a leading service provider in Italy for commercial credit management, ESG sustainability evaluation and business development in domestic and foreign markets.

He is also General Manager of the CRIF business unit dedicated to Business Information & BPO, and he is also the Managing Director of CRIBIS Credit Management.

For several years, he has held international roles within the Group in Jordan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Poland and Germany, and he is a member of the Board of Directors for Credit Data Research Italia and Workinvoice.

Marco Radice, born in Udine in 1957, is an expert in banking and commercial law, in 1994 he founded the Radice & Cereda law firm and has acted as an independent director and chairman of the Audit Committee in joint-stock companies carrying out insurance, banking and financial activities . He also held the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Itas Vita. He is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Chairman of the Audit Committee in Unicredit Bank Russia (Moscow). He also holds the role of Chairman of the Audit Committee Unicredit Bank Serbia (Belgrade), Unicredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia (Prague) and Bulbank (Sofia)

Morten Bækmand Nielsen is Head of Asset Liability Management & Investor Relations at Danish mortgage bank Nykredit and chairman of the ECBC.

He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Copenhagen and has attended courses at London Business School and University of Pennsylvania/Wharton.

Morten has spent most of his career in Nykredit, though he started out as a trainee at Nordea before moving to Nykredit’s Group Treasury as a fixed income portfolio manager. He has later worked in fixed income research in Nykredit Markets and helped develop the bank’s lending franchise outside Denmark.

Later he was responsible for a number of regulatory project including the implementation of the CRD in relation to covered bonds. After returning to Group Treasury he took over the responsibility for mortgage product development and investor relations and continued to be involved in regulatory issues including changes to the Danish covered bond legislation.

For the past decade the focus of Morten’s work has been investor relations and regulatory affairs. He took up his current position in 2021.

He has represented the Danish covered bond issuers in the ECBC’s Steering Committee since 2017 and has also previously served as chairman of the organization’s Technical Issues Working Group.

Neil Day is Managing Editor of The Covered Bond Report and Sustainabonds. He is a former editor of EuroWeek/GlobalCapital and also publishes on bank and insurance hybrid capital. He holds a degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics.

Nicholas Talbot is the Chief Executive of the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) – a position he has held since July of 2016. Nick is an international expert in advising on standards and professionalism. The IVSC brings together experts from around the world to produce International Valuation Standards. It covers all asset classes and is recognized in different ways by the World Bank, IMF, UN, as well as some of the world’s biggest investors, corporates and influential professional bodies who qualify appraisers. It engages at the highest levels of regulators in the US and around the world in order to improve and give confidence in the approach to valuation. It is overseen by an independent board of global leaders www.ivsc.org/boards/

Before working at IVSC Nick was a global director at RICS and has held various non-executive roles, having previously worked for much of his career in a variety of international roles at Ernst & Young and KPMG. Outside of work Nick dedicates time to raising profile and money for Cystic Fibrosis charities across the world, has featured in various documentaries, television, radio and news outlets across the world, and has received a Point of Light Award from the UK Prime Minister.

Norbert Holczinger is the Head of Sustainable Finance Department at the Central Bank of Hungary (MNB). He is responsible for the MNB’s Green Programme. He coordinates supervisory actions to identify and mitigate environmental risks. He is committed to expand green financial services in Hungary. During the past ten years he actively contributed to local and international projects, analyses, and regulatory tasks in different roles within the MNB. Norbert is a certified Professional Risk Manager (PRM) experienced in the risk management of mortgage lending and insurance companies. He graduated as a Quantitative Economic Analyst, also holds a Finance and MBA degree. 

Patrick Seifert is head of primary markets & global syndicate at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW). Before this, he developed the FIG and SSA origination team into a leading franchise. Providing tailor-made funding solutions for demanding issuers, LBBW is particularly appreciated for its excellent distribution capacity throughout economic cycles.

Patrick does leverage his extensive sales and strategic experience with former employers BHF-BANK and ING Group to help issuers respond to regulatory changes and market challenges: Ongoing investor diversification, central bank interventions and facilitating product innovations.

The latter includes conditional pass-through covered bonds and the first ESG and Green Pfandbrief issues almost 10 years ago – in all of which LBBW played a vital role.

Patrick holds Master’s degrees from the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz as well as the University of Chicago and regularly lectures with the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

Roberto Colomer, is the CEO of Union de Creditos Inmobiliarios (UCI), a Spanish specialized Mortgage Lender, with a portfolio of more than €10,000M on its balance sheet, essentially originated through real estate professionals, present in the markets of Spain, Portugal and Greece. UCI is also the main player in the mortgage securitization market in Spain and Portugal, having made 28 issues in Spain and 2 in Portugal. He is also Chairman of the Comprarcasa real estate networks, with activity in Spain and Portugal. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the AHE (Asociacion Hipotecaria Española),  that he represents in the EMF, where in the last 3 years he has been Deputy Chairman.

At UCI he has held different positions, initially in the IT and Back-Office areas, later as Head of the Front-Office, and finally as CEO of the Group.

Before UCI, he held the position of IT Manager at Banco Internacional de Andorra, and previously head of ATMs and POS in the IT area of ​​Banco de Bilbao (Spain).

Among the professional recognitions received by Roberto, the following should be noted: the medal of honour from FIABCI Spain  (international Real Estate Federation), the condition of honorary member of APEMIP (Portuguese Association of Real Estate Brokers) and the Special Achievement Award from the CRS (Council of Residential Specialist) of USA.

His academic background is the first cycle (3 years) of the Bachelor of Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid, and the Bachelor degree of International Business Administration at Lincoln University (UK).

Ronan Donohue is a London-based former investment banker with more than 25 years of front-office experience in the international capital markets. He maintains a strong track record in building and managing investment banking capital solutions teams (typically with a focus on hybrid capital, liability management, ratings advisory as well as related strategic advice). As founder and managing director of his own consultancy company, Q4 Capital Advisors, he now offers advisory services leveraging career-long experience, as well as in regard to the latest developments in FinTech, AI and the potentially transformative impact of Blockchain on the finance industry and economic activity more generally.

Sanna Eriksson is the Managing Director of OP Mortgage Bank and the Head of Investor Relations in OP Financial Group in Finland. She has worked in the Group since 2000 in various managerial positions and the last 10 years in OP Mortgage Bank. In 2019 Sanna became the Managing Director of OP Mortgage Bank, as well as the Head of IR.

Green finance is close to Sanna’s heart and OP Mortgage Bank has been the pioneer issuing the inaugural Green Covered Bond in Finland 2021 and the next one in 2022. Sanna is also an active member of European Covered Bond Council´s (ECBC) Steering Committee representing Finnish Covered Bonds issuing entities. In addition, she is the chairwoman of the Finnish Taxonomy and Green Finance Hub organised by Finnish Green Building Council. Since its beginning Sanna has been a member of Finance Finland´s Mortgage Bank Committee and starting from 2023, Sanna will be the chairwoman.

Sanna holds a degree in Marketing from Helsinki School of Economics and finds sustainability to be an integral part of her life both on and off work.

Executive President, Alpha Bank Romania & General Manager of International Network, Alpha Bank

Mr. Sergiu Oprescu has an extensive experience in banking and capital markets in Romania, with a career of over 29 years in the financial sector. He holds a MEng Graduate degree with concentration in Avionics from the Aeronautical Faculty, Politehnica University of Bucharest, a postgraduate degree in Banking from the University of Colorado and attended multiple executive program studies at Harvard Business School (HBS Alumni PPL class of 2019) and London Business School (LBS Alumni).

He joined Alpha Bank Romania in 1994 and held several senior positions before he was appointed Executive President in 2007. He served as Chairman of the Bucharest Stock Exchange from 2000 to 2006 and as President of the Board of Directors of the Romanian Association of Banks from 2015 to 2021. He is a Member of the Executive Committee at the European Mortgage Federation.

In 2019, he was appointed as General Manager of International Network of Alpha Bank Group and member of the Executive Committee of the Group, co-ordinating the international activity of Alpha in Cyprus, Romania, UK and Luxemburg.

Spanish Industrial Engineer, graduated with a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, specialising in “Energy Techniques”.

Within the private sector, she spent two years working at TWI (The Welding Institute) and four years at Johnson Matthey, both in the United Kingdom, before joining the public administration in Spain.

She is currently working in the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge in Spain. Specifically, in the Sub directorate of Energy Efficiency, in the area of “buildings”. She is responsible for the coordination, development and monitoring, at national, European and International level of initiatives and programmes related to Energy Performance of buildings (EPB); the coordination of the national position related to Energy Performance of Buildings and the development of regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives at national and European level related to this same topic.

Graduated from Rome University in Economics, Stefano started his career with Crédit Agricole in Paris and then Milan, dealing with the foreign subsidiaries of the banking group. He subsequently joined Intesa Sanpaolo where he worked for Planning, CIB and Treasury Department. In the latter position he was involved in the structuring of all proprietary securitisations and covered bond programmes, heading the management of all the CB programmes of Intesa Sanpaolo. Eventually he took responsibility for the Supranational and Intragroup Funding unit.

Stefano spent recent years in Brussels, as head of the European Regulatory Policy team of Intesa Sanpaolo, within the overall Institutional Affairs Dept, entrusted with the analysis and advocacy on the EU banking and financial markets legislative files, e.g. prudential files, crisis management, securitisation, covered bonds, retail and financial markets legislation.

In 2022 Stefano has been appointed Deputy Chairman of the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC) and is the Moderator of the European Secured Notes (ESN) Task Force. Representing Intesa Sanpaolo, he also participates to the working groups of different EU banking associations, notably he is an alternate member of the AFME Securitisation Board, the Prudential Regulation Board and the European Public Policy Committee.

Vannella is a Managing Director with 24 years experience in Investment Banking. She has the responsibility for the origination of debt products and liability management transactions for Financial Institutions; since 2021 she has also coordinated DCM ESG marketing and structuring activities across all industry sectors at Intesa Sanpaolo.